India adds to gold price boom
Demand for gold in India shoots up during between September and January, a traditional time to give gifts of the precious metal. But India's central bank is also buying gold, purchasing 200 metric tonnes of the metal from the International Monetary Fund in October, which helped the gold price surge to nearly $1,200 an ounce. While central banks typically buy US dollars as the currency of last reserve, the growing taste for gold shows this is now changing. The deal with the IMF boosted the central bank's gold reserves by nearly 56%, but this is not as significant as it seems, as gold accounted for just 4% of the Reserve Bank of India’s total foreign exchange reserves in September. Read more: BusinessWeek
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